Arab TV station airs pictures of Gaddafi funeral prayer

Dubai-based Al Alaan TV have broadcast amateur footage that they claim shows the bodies of Colonel Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and his defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis prior to their burial in the Sahara Desert.

12:29PM BST 26 Oct 2011

The broadcaster claims the grainy footage shows a funeral ceremony near Misurata, held over open wooden coffins which appear to contain the bodies of Muammar Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and Gaddafi's former defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis.

In the short video, a cleric, believed to be Gaddafi's own Khaled Tantoush, who was captured alongside the former leader five days ago, appears to be performing the ritual Islamic funeral prayer of Salat al-Janazah in a dimly-lit ceremony witnessed by a small crowd of onlookers.

The coffins were then taken from the compound and handed to two National Trasitional Council (NTC) loyalists for burial at a secret desert location.

The prayers were reportedly attended by two of Gaddafi's cousins, Mansour Dhao Ibrahim, once leader of the feared People's Guard, and Ahmed Ibrahim.

Both were captured with him after a Nato air strike hit a convoy of vehicles trying to break out of Sirte, Gaddafi's home town, just after it fell.